Starting around 2014, a steady flow of journalists and IT professionals were proclaiming that blockchain technology had officially come of age and would soon change the way we work and live. The revolution never happened, but these predictions didn’t stop, leaving some to wonder what blockchain was actually good for or if the whole thing had just been hype. Today, the average citizen still can’t define the term blockchain, let alone mention a blockchain-powered application besides Bitcoin, but things are starting to change.
The blockchain ecosystem seems to have reached critical mass and is poised to start affecting real people in the real world, just not in the way that many expected. We were promised mind-blowing consumer apps and other cool blockchain toys, but so far it’s just been about cryptocurrencies and the recent NFT craze. I believe there are two reasons for this: 1) Blockchain is surprisingly hard to explain to non-technical people, and 2) it’s a whole lot of work to build useful blockchain-enabled apps.
It’s rare that a technology is so hard to explain that it affects its adoption, but after 10 years of blockchain hype, the average non-technical CEO remains hard-pressed to explain what blockchain really is. Understanding blockchain means learning some new concepts around cryptography, algorithms and networking. Blockchains run on the server side, so there’s nothing to see, touch or share, meaning it has to be explained on the whiteboard. With blockchain being such a highly complex and abstract technology, it’s no surprise that non-technical business leaders are slow to jump on the bandwagon. Revolutionary as it may be, the CEO of a large corporation won’t invest in something they don’t understand — and neither will venture capitalists, small businesses or governments.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/08/24/blockchain-thrives-on-big-money-and-big-ideas/?sh=1c876cf27fa3
The blockchain ecosystem seems to have reached critical mass and is poised to start affecting real people in the real world, just not in the way that many expected. We were promised mind-blowing consumer apps and other cool blockchain toys, but so far it’s just been about cryptocurrencies and the recent NFT craze. I believe there are two reasons for this: 1) Blockchain is surprisingly hard to explain to non-technical people, and 2) it’s a whole lot of work to build useful blockchain-enabled apps.
It’s rare that a technology is so hard to explain that it affects its adoption, but after 10 years of blockchain hype, the average non-technical CEO remains hard-pressed to explain what blockchain really is. Understanding blockchain means learning some new concepts around cryptography, algorithms and networking. Blockchains run on the server side, so there’s nothing to see, touch or share, meaning it has to be explained on the whiteboard. With blockchain being such a highly complex and abstract technology, it’s no surprise that non-technical business leaders are slow to jump on the bandwagon. Revolutionary as it may be, the CEO of a large corporation won’t invest in something they don’t understand — and neither will venture capitalists, small businesses or governments.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/08/24/blockchain-thrives-on-big-money-and-big-ideas/?sh=1c876cf27fa3
